Hey there teamChiseledBranches! I hope your week is off to a great start! Have you decided to join our X3 Challenge Group or Shakeology Challenge Group that are launching next Monday?! Keep me posted, and I’ll set you up in the facebook group.

If you had to use one word to wrap up your commitment to your goals this year, what would it be? Dedication? Faith? Courage? Consistency? I’d love to hear them.

I think my word of the year is going to be Investment. No, I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about time, energy, and effort. I aim to invest as much of myself as I can into my relationships, because when my family life is balanced, everything else seems to follow suit. The best gift you can give someone you love, is the gift of your time. Not everyone may feel this way, but I have found it to ring true in my life. Over the last year I’ve noticed that I haven’t been keeping in touch as well with my girlfriends, and I miss them. So, in 2014 I aim to invest more of my energy in keeping in contact with them. My favorite time of the day is when Frank and I descend to the basement for our workout. When I press play we have several minutes (as the disk gets going) to fool around, jump around, and pump each other up. This time is quality couple time. Try to bring your loved ones into the workout loop with you – I bet you’ll find the same thing! It is a great thing to share with a friend, and I admit that I get pretty spoiled having a regular workout partner.

When it comes to my daily fitness, I’ve found that my time, energy, and effort ALL required. It is pretty easy to show up, since I really look forward to my workouts after a day of being chair bound at work – but the hard part is bringing the effort to really pay attention to the form and purpose of the different movements. I aim to fully invest my energy and effort into mastering the workouts I struggle with. Right now, I can name several…since I just finished X3 Accelerator! Dolphin Hops and Donkey Kicks to name a few!! Thank goodness those workouts are only 30 minutes – because I was DONE at the end of that one. Unfortunately, this girl thought it would be a good idea to do X3 Ab Ripper for the first time after that workout tonight. OUCH! 8 moves in 13 minutes…doesn’t sound too bad right?! Wrong! I will have lots of effort invested in improvements in those two workouts!

When I asked one of my girlfriends this question about her word of the year today, she thought about it for a little while and came back at me with this new word: Metanoia. She explained to me that Metanoia is the journey of changing ones mind, heart, self or way of life. She told me she is working on changing her mind by getting rid of her negative voice, changing her heart by learning to love herself more and changing her way of life by kicking bad habits. I love it!

In was slightly speechless! I think I can also work Metanoia into my vocabulary by making the commitment to change my mind about being conservative in sharing my fitness journey. I will be LESS conservative…sure it’s personal…but it could also be the catalyst in inspiring others to start their own journey! I share it with teamChiseledBranches, but I will make the effort to share it in person too. I will commit to changing my heart by making a constant effort to not take things personal. I will commit to changing my life by investing more of my time, energy, and effort in the things that are important to me – in other words, the 3 “F’s.” Family, friends, and fitness.

Keep bringing it in your workouts guys! Just pretend like I’m there – suffering with you when you lose track of how many times your butt hits the floor when you lose your balance during Donkey Kicks! Invest in yourself – it will be worth it!